The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
I was 29 years old. Linda, Michael, and I had moved to Nashotah, Wisconsin, about a month and a half earlier. I was sitting in the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin at Nashotah House. It was a Thursday night during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, during which I would be matriculated as a son of the House.
Linda was sitting off to the side, and I was sitting in my assigned seat behind the rood screen, an ornately carved screen of arches at the top of which is a figure of Jesus on the cross, flanked by four wood statues of saints. On the other side of the screen were the choir stalls, in which were sitting the upperclassmen and the faculty, and off in the distance, at the east end , was the ornate altar, vested with a rich fabric of white and gold. The chapel was filled with the smoke from the incense.
All of a sudden I was filled with an overwhelming sense of the presence of God, accompanied by my own sense of unworthiness to be there. I had come to Nashotah House after years of preparation. My journey to that place had been the result of a sense of my calling, my vocation. That wonderful gift of a strong sense of the presence of God was a confirmation of all that Linda and I, and, unknowingly, our son, Michael, had been through to get to that point.
My experience that night in the chapel was what some call a “thin” place. There is normally a barrier between the things of this world and the things of the Spirit. When that barrier is diminished and the things of the Spirit break into this world, it’s called a thin place. When we experience a thin place, God’s presence is felt more keenly, and one’s purpose in life seen more clearly. Another way of putting it is that it is an experience of an entirely different dimension of reality, a fourth dimension, if you will. In my experience it is a rare event, but when it does happen, it is a tremendous blessing.
When Jesus gave the Holy Eucharist to his disciples, and through them, to the whole Church, for all time, I believe he intended to provide the Church with a perpetual thin place. The sacrifice that he was about to make on the cross would happen only once. How would he keep that sacrifice from becoming just a distant memory of an historical event? He did it by providing the Church, all those who had been made members of his Body through baptism, with the Sacrament by which, whenever it was celebrated, it would be a participation in that original sacrifice. It would be a way by which the barriers of time, place, and physicality would be overcome. Thus, even though in the Upper Room at that first Eucharist his sacrifice had not even yet occurred, his disciples were participating in that sacrifice that was to come. The barriers of past, present, and future were overcome. Heaven was joined to earth and earth to heaven. Jesus created a thin place for all time to come.
Our Lord Jesus used the context of the Passover to celebrate that first Eucharist. The Jewish concept of celebrating the Passover to this day is to celebrate it as if those participating are at the original Passover, when the Jews were delivered from the old life of slavery to the new life of freedom. In other words, every Passover is far more than a mere commemoration of something that happened in the past, but rather is a bringing to the present of that past event.
Of course, the language Jesus spoke was Aramaic. When the evangelists translated Jesus’ Aramaic words into Greek, the words that in English mean “Do this for the remembrance of me,” they used the word anamnesis. Anamnesis is a Greek word for which there is no English equivalent. Its meaning is basically the same as the meaning around which the Passover is celebrated. It means to call something from the past to the present, to call to the present a past event. “Do this for the anamnesis of me.” Thus, our Lord Jesus, in instituting the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, gave his Church the way in which we could access the original event of his suffering, death, and resurrection. It is the way in which we participate in a thin place whenever we gather for the Holy Eucharist, the way in which we participate in that fourth dimension in which heaven is joined to earth and earth to heaven.
Tonight we celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the Mass. We speak of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament, the risen Jesus present with us in the people gathered, in the Word read and proclaimed, in the Celebrant, and in his Body and Blood. Yet, every time we gather for the Holy Eucharist, not only is our risen Lord Jesus present with us, but also we become present with him at the Last Supper, in his suffering, and in his death. We speak of his sacrifice as a once for all sacrifice. It never needs to be repeated. Part of why it never needs to be repeated is that we participate in that original sacrifice by being present at Mass.
Jesus gave us the Sacrament to provide that thin place where heaven meets earth and earth heaven. It happened to be at a celebration of the Holy Eucharist when I had that “thin” moment in seminary some 34 years ago. You don’t always feel that you’re having a deeply spiritual experience when you come to Mass, even though you are, but I have to say that I often feel the presence of God in powerful ways at Mass. Frequently it happens as I am administering the Sacrament to you at the Altar. What a profound experience it is to give you the Body of Christ. Try to see it like I see it at the altar rail. I hand the Body of Christ to a new mother and father, and bless their baby; then to a man who recently lost his job, to a woman battling cancer; then to a member of the vestry; then to a homeless person; next to a doctor. And so it goes—so many different people, so many different life circumstances. And yet, all are at the same altar, all on their knees, all in need of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Always that is a thin moment for me, and also a grateful moment, as I give thanks for being a part of your lives as your priest and for the sacred trust that comes with that.
“O saving victim, opening wide the gate of heaven to us below, our foes press on from every side, thine aid supply, thy strength bestow. All praise and thanks to thee ascend for evermore, blest One in Three; o grant us life that shall not end in our true native land with thee.”
Sermon by The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
Maundy Thursday
2 April 2015